


The Scientist (I)

by ptriverson



Category: Physics - Fandom, Richard Feynman - Fandom, Science - Fandom, The Manhattan Project - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 06:46:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17198549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ptriverson/pseuds/ptriverson
Summary: Trapped in the Manhattan project at the end of the second world war, things heat up as the tension grows





	The Scientist (I)

The Scientist 

1.

I had heard it could be cold and wet during the wintertime at that altitude. But I was never there during the wintertime, for we arrived very late, in the spring of 1945. 

So all I ever knew, and my great, overwhelming memory of Los Alamos is the heat; that astonishing desert heat. 

It wasn't like the summers I knew back home in Madison, R.I., which were damp, and made you soggy and tiresome and desperate for the fresh red and gold of fall. 

This was dry: endless, and unnerving. We were high up in the mesa, where you got short of breath easily amongst the riven desert plains, so it felt that there was danger in the very air we breathed. Never drive in the desert alone, always carry water. It was beautiful, and deadly. 

Many of the other people had been there for two years; for two years in what was not called such but was in fact an internment camp, more or less. 

At any rate, you were not free to leave. 

There were rows of prefab houses, strung with electricity wires above them over unpaved roads that were either dusty in the heat or muddy in the occasional plummeting rainstorms that turned the streets to rivers in an instant. There were well over 4000 people there by the time we arrived; an entire secret city, high amongst the mountains of New Mexico.

They shimmered pink in the morning, those mountains, if you were up early enough, which I was, often, for I did not sleep well and that time of the day was cool and fresh. In the evenings, as the great shadows came over them, they glowed purple. 

Bobby, my husband, was a calculator, which doesn't sound like a job now because obviously we have machines to do that, but back then they needed very clever young men in to do that kind of thing. So I really should tell you about Bobby. 

Bobby was the year above me in high school, and I did like him, I really did. He was tall and blonde and incredibly clever and polite to everyone and nice to his mother and not girl- crazy, and you might think, aha, and you would be right to do so, but you don't know what it was like back then. 

It's hard to remember how repressed we were now, hard to even envisage it. We didn't even have words for everything we disapproved of.

Anyway, my mom and his mom were best friends, right since they were little girls. I think that's why they kind of pushed us into it. His mom must have known, I think. Moms always do. 

So. We knew each other all our lives. He took me to my junior prom, and we made awkward conversation, and I suppose that I, naive as I was back then, thought it was rather noble of him not to try and feel me up in the back of his father's Packard, like the other boys did, or so I'd heard; that it was sweet of him to match my corsage so perfectly. He was a good dancer. 

And he was so, SO smart; supersmart: he wasn't going to be stuck in Madison, R.I. for a second longer than necessary, you could see that about him for sure. 

At 16 he was already taking college math, and they ran out of things to teach him too, and then he got offers from everywhere you could believe and he accepted Yale, and he raced through that in two years and got offered a further study place in mathematics there right away. And it had teaching attached, so it kind of made sense that he might move into married people's quarters- I'd been up to see him then, and he'd visited me many times back in Madison, and everyone from both our families was so happy about it, so, you know, we just did. There was a war on. 

We got married in my parents' back yard, with a pretty bower and my pa, who didn't say a lot at the best of times, just said 'good luck, kitten', and our mothers held hands, which at the time I thought was sweet, and now I know it was Bobby's mother probably just thinking, 'oh please, oh please let this turn out alright, let my son not be an outcast for the rest of his life', and my mother- I suspect- could already see Bobby was bound for great things, and was thinking, 'please let my painfully shy, quiet little daughter get out of this small town and see something of the world; let her do well and travel and expand her horizons, and have a nice home and all those things she doesn't even realise yet are important."

I was nineteen years old.

*

Like many nicely brought up girls in the forties, I knew no more about sex than my dutch ancestors would have two hundred years ago. Probably remarkably less in fact, as I had a bedroom to myself, with a ruched gingham counterpane and a three panelled mirrored dressing table of which I was extremely proud, and no older brothers or sisters to teach me a thing. Neither did we live on a farm, which might at least have given me some insight into the mechanics. 

All I knew was it was meant to be rather tricky and, judging from the pained way women elder than me looked when the subject came up, entirely embarrassing, dirty and unpleasant. 

I could consider myself lucky then, I supposed, that Bobby was only very rarely interested in it, and even then it took place very very quietly, with eyes averted on both sides. It was a little painful to begin with, but not unendurable, although it often took a long time, and generally he would prefer it if I lay on my stomach, which whilst not terribly comfortable saved me the problem of trying not to look at him not looking at me, and I could think myself somewhere else.

Regardless, by our third year of marriage this had mostly petered out altogether, and neither of us ever mentioned it. 

Otherwise, we got on well and were reasonably cheerful, and Bobby was incredibly busy. The call came when I was 22 and Bobby 24- he was expecting to be called up in the normal scheme of things, but then he got hauled into the university for an interview and came home looking a bit shellshocked, and mumblingly informed me we were moving straightaway, the government had said so. 

He couldn't even tell us where we were going, never mind what he would be doing when we got there. I mean, at all, not even to mom and momma B, as we called his mom, both of whom were furious with us about this. I was mostly worried that I didn't know what clothes to pack.

We just had to leave our sweet little faculty house right behind us, because the government had plans for us now, they told us, which sounded ominous, but you know, there was the most terrible war still going on in the Pacific, and this must have something to do with it, although I didn't know why we had to get on a train and travel right cross the country to help. But we did. 

And we got there, to this weird place that was a secret- although how it could have been a secret to the local people, a bunch of strange white folks turning up and giving false names and living in a secret camp surrounded by police and this and that and all the rest of it, well, that I will never understand.

Anyway, we were given a tiny prefab house because we were married, on a little dirt trail with lot of other exactly similar houses spread across the lot. We didn't even have an address; we were all just Box 1663, Santa Fe, so they could censor every single thing coming in and out, which of course they did. 

Straightaway Bobby was whisked off up to something they called the Tech Area, to work on something he wasn't allowed to talk to me about, and he worked incredibly hard, longer than twelve hour days. He'd arrive home shattered and distracted, and fall into bed. 

As for me, I was mostly left to my own devices. 

*

The dry, repetitive, endless summer heat of New Mexico was new to me: that huge sky; the dust, shimmering all the way to the mountainous horizon. It made me languid and restless at the same time, as well as extraordinarily lonely. 

The men looked stiff and uncomfortable in their shirts and ties and jackets; many were from the cold universities of the east: Stanford; Princeton, MIT. Their tweed and patched corduroy looked out of place. Everybody was hot.

Our compound didn't even have a swimming pool and, with only our tiny prefab house to clean and Bobby working incredibly long hours- sometimes he even slept in the Tech Area, they had cots there, from the boys' school it used to be- oh, golly, there was so little for a girl to do.

*

We caused a small flurry of interest and curiosity when we arrived. Most of the folks had been there for a couple of years, and new blood was thin on the ground. Plus Bobby had always attracted plenty of attention with his nice looks and easygoing ways. We were invited to this and that- a musical evening here, a canyon walk there- and we got along well enough, although I soon realised there was curiosity around Bobby. Possibly some gossip too. He... he had started slipping away again. 

He'd done it New Haven too. I didn't ever ask, and he didn't ever offer an explanation. Which sounds strange between a husband and a wife, but I really and truly did not want to know. It must have been a lot harder to sneak out at Los Alamos, I would have thought, what with the guards and passes and security and what not. But he seemed to manage it.. 

Anyway. We were invited here and there, and the night I'm talking of, there was a party of eight for dinner. It was a Thursday in early June and we had been there for just over three months. 

I already suspected that they all knew.

It was hosted by Margie Henderson, who considered herself something of a queen bee- which she was, to be fair; she arranged piano lessons for children, helped out when people were sick and didn't have their own family close at hand and arranged the social circle and the church rota, neither of which interested me particularly. Her partner- in- crime Susan was there too: she had an identical hair do, short and heavily lacquered, and looked a little like Margie only slightly fatter, and laughed at her jokes constantly as if that were her job, and her husband, Professor Franks, a Scandinavian man, very tall, who spat quite a lot when excited, which was often. Margie's husband Pete was the manager of the facility, so she really did know everybody.

Then there was Carly Rushton, who was gorgeous, and a gossip and permanently furious about everything and talked constantly about the life she'd left behind in California, which was apparently a great deal like New Mexico, only much much better. She had three boys whom she hollered at all day and she drank a great deal. Her husband, Henry, was a short, quiet man whom would you not have picked out if you were matching Happy Family cards for them. 

Plus some widower, and me, because Bobby was finishing up some extra work on this new calculating device they had, although even on nights when Bobby wasn't working he despised socialising with the compound wives. He found it tedious and superficial, and he discouraged personal enquiries. 

I on the other hand- I had had few confidantes amongst the much older faculty wives at Yale, so I had found it quite stimulating to be taken up by Margie and Susan, who were seemed very grown up to me, and I think they liked having a new pair of ears around to listen to their stories and complaints, mostly the latter.

Their chit- chat had also taught me a thing or two- partly, that a husband should constantly be asking for sex and pestering you, which did not chime with my experience in the slightest, but also that some women- Carly Rushton's name did come up- were considered 'goers', or had been in their day, with an appetite for it.

What did that even mean, I would think, languishing through the hot, hazy, endless days with only the huge purple sunsets of the evening to separate one from the other, which I saw in alone too. What did it mean, to want it, to be hungry for it? 

Sometimes when the heat lay heavy and I would doze off, only very faintly, in the afternoon, perhaps after reading a novel, I would get an intimation of what that might mean; something would twitch, a little, half in and out of consciousness, in that place I had been taught- somehow, how?- never to go anywhere near, but I would wake up with a start, confused, breathless, my skirts pulled up around my knees, my thoughts in disarray. 

Bobby was a good man, but oh, the poor thing, he wasn't built for marriage. He had no interest, really, in what I did with my days- which wasn't surprising, considering how little I did do with them. He didn't care for my meals- I had been given the Housewife's Manual as a wedding gift, and I was dutifully working my way through it as well as possible on local rations, substituting tinned fruit for fresh, and Kool Whip for cream, with varying results. 

He loved his work though, adored it. And beyond it was something on a distant horizon, something that was not me, that he must have strained to see. Perhaps a child or two might have been a distraction or something that brought us together a little more but, clueless as I was, I knew there had to be a little more going on between us than what we had for there ever to be the slightest chance of that. 

* 

I knew who Richard Feynman was before that evening, kind of; everybody did. Everyone at Los Alamos was clever: he was a genius. Bobby was working with him and would come home, shaking his head in disbelief. 

"Usually' said Bobby, who'd been about the smartest guy in every room he'd been in since he was fifteen years old. 

"Usually when I see someone work- in my own goddam field- I can tell you what they're doing. I can tell you exactly what's up. But with this guy, sheesh. He's something else. I can't even figure out his methods. Well, this is his method: someone writes a question up on the board, then Dick writes the answer up on the board. Unbelievable.” 

The other reason everyone knew of him was that his wife had died the previous year, only 25 years old, back east in New York State. New Mexico was a good climate for TB, I knew that, but she hadn't made it that far. I know the fact that people used to die of TB all the time might seem strange to you, but they did, and until the good drugs, there was absolutely nothing you could do about it.

So I'd heard of Dick Feynman, but not met him, and was preparing myself for another evening of The Men completely ignoring The Women to discuss The Gadget in vague and incomprehensible abstractions. I'd never yet been at one of those things that didn't end with the men all huddled in a corner, drawing diagrams on the serviettes. 

And us women would be expected to chat about whatever women were meant to like to chat about; children, I supposed, and weddings, and cooking, schooling, and when they were going to built that hospital and oh isn't it awful for Ciss, poor you, the youngest here and your husband so que... busy, which I did not enjoy, the mouths behind the hands, the genteel tittering, as if it were a massively better achievement to be married to a spitting scandinavian who scattered crumbs behind himself wherever he went, or a tiny fat professor who was terrified of his own wife and sons. 

But the alternative was watching the sun go down, yet again, in lonely splendour, from the back of my porch. 

Right at that instant, though, I'd have taken it, I was thinking, as Margie starting handing round ritz crackers with a smear of primula cheese on top and scattered with something that might have been paprika. I sipped at my martini, which was eye- wateringly strong,and put it down and pretended to be doing something else, and thought how much I would like to go home. 

Then I looked up, and Richard walked in, and, well, that was very much the end of that.

***

If I had one wish, it would be to be able to see him again for the very first time; simply to watch him walk into that room. 

He crackled; that sounds ridiculous but it's the only way I can describe it. There was an energy off him; he didn't walk; he bounced. His clothes hung on him; a soft cotton shirt; messily tied tie, slightly oversized jacket. I learned later he had a closet full of identical clothes, so he didn't have to choose what to wear in the morning. Likewise, if he was ever in a restaurant he would always have chocolate icecream for dessert: he already knew he liked it, and disliked cluttering up his precious thinking time with minor decisions. 

He was tall, with long legs, and thick dark hair which he sometimes remembered to smooth down with brylcream, but mostly didn't, so it could stick out at peculiar angles. He had a handsome, strong-jawed face- jewish, I heard my mother's absurd presbyterian voice whisper in my head in slightly shocked tones, then ignored it- arched eyebrows, and the most wicked, dancing, bewitching eyes I'd ever seen, the colour of hazelnuts. 

He didn't look like a genius- I'd met a few, through Bobby's work, and they were ponderous men on the whole, fond of being referred to as such- and he didn't look like what I might have thought a widower might look like either: he looked like an overgrown imp, full of mischief. 

Margie introduced us.

"Dick, this is Ciss, Bobby Masterson's wife."

Out of nowhere, I suddenly felt myself turn bright pink. I had been a shy child, terrified of blushing, and this was preposterous: I was, suddenly, absolutely scorching. My tongue became instantly too large for my mouth,and I could barely choke out a hello. He turned that sharp gaze on me and I swear he could tell exactly what I was thinking, even though at that point I absolutely did not know myself. 

It was as if I had been, quite unbeknownst to me, an ordinary lamp all my life, and he had simply walked into the room and plugged me in. 

"Hello Ciss Bobby Masterson's wife" he said, grinning at me. "Hang on, Bobby has a wife?"

"Ssh" said Margie. "Just ignore him" she said to me. "He's a terrible tease"

"I'm a terribly hungry tease" said Dick. "Tell me it's not all crackers."

"Oh, hush yourself"

Carly Rushton came over and, daringly, draped herself over him and kissed his cheek. He gave me a horrified look, which made me blush even pinker and want to giggle. 

"How are you, my gorgeous chap' she said. "Can I get you a drink?"

Then the oddest thing happened. Dick Feynman stared straight at me, very directly and seriously, and paused for an instant, as if trying to make his mind up about something. Then he did so.

"No thank you" he said to Carly. "Need a clear head."

Carly pouted. "Well, you are NO fun" she said, heading off to the kitchen. "Who needs topping up?"

I glanced at my nearly untouched cocktail balanced on the table. 

"You can pour it in the yucca plant later" said Dick. "They'll all be too loaded to notice."

I will tell you I cannot remember what we ate- veal cutlets? Something like that, it would have been. Garden string beans. I couldn't eat much. The men talked physics of course- occasionally they would shout a question over to Dick and he would lob the answer back over his shoulder, without even turning round. The women were talking about their children, then about other women then, inevitably, I could tell, about me. 

Because Dick and I were only talking to one another. He asked me things about myself: everything it seemed, he could get his hands on. Where I'd grown up; what my childhood was like, how I'd met Bobby. I was so colorless back then; I was pretty, or so I'd been told, but I was not witty or interesting or funny or a man, and I felt so below notice, that simply to have this clever fascinating person take any interest in me at all, even out of pity, would have been quite something.

But of course that was not all it was, and he knew it and I knew it. I would be talking, far more freely than I normally did and then, suddenly, catch sight of the thick coarse hair coming out of his freshly laundered buttoned shirt cuffs, and the breath would catch in my throat, then I would go that accursed pink colour again,and look at him, and he would be watching me, amused but entirely steady, as if he knew exactly what was happening and what I was thinking, and was simply waiting for it all to play itself out. 

It is not necessary of course in any seduction for one party to be fully in control of themselves and the situation. But it can be very useful: particularly if the other party is young, nervous, inexperienced and, frankly, married to somebody else, all of which I undeniably was. 

When he was called away to explain something to the men I wanted to pluck, plaintively at his sleeve, beg him to come back. 

Gossipy Carly saw her chance and slipped in beside me.

"Well" she said. "I don't know what you've done to Dick. He normally comes to these things, bolts down his food, trades a few equations and is out as fast as he can manage."

She looked at me shrewdly. 

"He seems quite stricken with you."

"Nonsense" I said, thought I felt myself pinkening again with excitement. "He's just being friendly."

"Well, that's the thing" said Carly, pouting. "He's never friendly with me. And normally I ask him out with my gal pals, and he hasn't a damn thing to chat about to any one of those."

I didn't know what to say to that. And I couldn't have answered even if I had known, because at that instant, in the middle of wildly explaining something to the other men, who were hanging on his every word as he waved his arms about- he had a broad, gravelly New Yawk accent that thickened when he got excited- he caught my eye, and stopped talking, and held it for just a second and the entire room around us froze, as far as I was concerned, and time stopped, and I would have sworn blind we were the only people in the room.

 

*

I went to the bathroom and threw cold water on my face. This was ridiculous; this wasn't like me at all. I had been Bobby's girl since I was 16 years old. I had been taught very clearly that there were good girls and bad girls, and I knew what side of the fence I was on. I knew what Carly was warning me of, and I knew the dangerous waters I was in, in our tiny little community, where everyone knew everybody's business.This would be round in ten seconds; that I had behaved like a moon calf in the presence of some male attention; that I was skittish, and worse. 

I found that I didn't give a damn. 

The more I thought about it in fact,the more determined I felt- a mixture, perhaps, of the stultifying heat; the atmosphere; the constant neglect I had suffered from the second the pastor had asked Bobby 'do you take this woman?" and there was a definite pause before he had said, with some resignation- 'I do'. 

I, who had never done a bad thing, or entertained a truly naughty thought in my entire life. I leaned forward into the mirror, and I added some lipstick. The rouge was not necessary.

*

The timbre of the evening- brought about by the jugs of martinis and the new californian wine Carly insisted in sloshing into everyone's glasses- had heightened by the time I got back into the dining room. Voices were higher pitched and louder; laughter was common; everyone was flushed and smiling too much. Except for Dick who sat, exactly where I had left him, his body facing the empty space on my chair, his right hand drumming out a rhythm on the tabletop. 

I squeezed past the portly little professor, whom I had comprehensively ignored, and sat back down facing Dick.

"I.." he began, and suddenly, Dick's face was no longer jolly, but instead very serious. But just as I leaned forwards, there came a clap of hands, and a 'ta dah!' as the lights were dimmed, and Rosa, Margie's maid, brought in a dessert; some kind of a cake that had been doused in alcohol and set on fire. Everybody clapped. And right then, underneath the table, I felt suddenly the sure and certain pressure of a leg against mine.

I dropped my fork. He completely ignored this. The lights still dim, he moved his long leg ever so gently upwards. And, suddenly as if my limbs belonged to somebody else, I moved mine towards his; rubbed, also as gently as if it were an accident, the side of my thigh against his. My nylons snagged on the heavy cotton of the trousers he was wearing.

He looked at me, and his eyes were dark pools. His eyebrows were pointed, which gave him an emphatic appearance; they arched even higher now, and I nodded.

Now there were no more questions: he had asked, and I had answered.

My head was whirling. I could not separate out this ridiculous, crazed thing inside me that wanted something more than anything; that did not even know what it wanted- from me, Cissie, the good friend, the docile daughter, the loving helpmeet I had hoped I could be to Bobby, whether he wanted it or not. 

Now I couldn't see who that person was; what that person wanted. Because the new Cissie, she knew exactly what she wanted. Or at least, I could not have described it, but I wanted it more than anything I had ever known. 

Both our desserts sat, untouched. I couldn't even play with mine; could not even lift the fork; it seemed to be in another universe to me,or behind a window. I swallowed hard.

"Leave" came the low voice. "Say you're leaving."

"Where should I say I'm leaving to?'

"I don't give a fuck" 

He said it casually, and I was shocked at the curse word, but when I looked at him, he didn't seem in the least bit casual; instead, like someone very much trying to keep themselves under control. 

"The upstairs bedroom if you have to."

"I think it's got children in it" I said, suddenly terrified and excited beyond words about what lay ahead. It seemed incredible to me that the entire room did not know what was happening; it felt like a cartoon; there should be wavy lines coming off us, or the smoke of someone on fire. I was on fire. I stood up. My legs were unsteady. I do not know where I found my voice.

"Margie, that was so lovely" I said, sounding quavery. "But I have to get home."

Margie looked puzzled.

'For Bobby?"

"Uh, yes. For Bobby."

That was the worst thing I said.

A frown crossed her face.

"But we're going to play bezique!'

"Uhm,I know. I'm sorry. That dessert was delicious, will you drop me off the recipe?"

"I'll drop it off" said Carly, a wicked smile on her face. "I'll talk you through it."

I swallowed and thanked them, hoping against hope that my reputation as a colorless mouse would save me. And simultaneously giving not a damn if it would not.

Dick jumped up. 

"I'll walk you" he said. "Can't let a lady out alone in the desert."

"Well, that's just great" said Margie, looking almost tearful at her party breaking up so early. "Are you coming back?"

"Very heavy schedule" said Dick. "But thank you so much, dinner was... superb." And he said it all clipped like that: soo-poib. 

*

There were few street lights; power was in short supply, plus many simply hadn't been built, as promised, on the compound itself. And people went to bed earlier then; past 9, many houses were dark.

Neither of us said a word as we crossed the road, not touching, walking in parallel away from Margie's house, and the eyes I thought might be following us down the street, my heels on the cheap asphalt of the main road making a noise like the clappers. I was breathless.

There was a children's playground by the edge of the next block, deserted most of the day in the pounding desert sun; busy only at sunset when the heat abated, but now once again rusting; empty. 

He did not press me, nor hurry me. He offered me his arm,and I took it, quite properly. He turned into the park, looking at me, saying nothing; an unusual state for such a voluble man. Then he found the thick wall of the shady park building, and pushed me, quite hard, up against it. 

He looked at me carefully to make sure I was where he was. 

I was so far beyond where he was, I think he was the last thing holding me up. This was not new to him. But this was a whole different, extraordinary world to me. 

He kissed me, and it wasn't the dry, passionless, polite kisses Bobby used to occasionally give me, which were a little like being nibbled by a bird. 

The was something entirely different: it was fierce; carnal, entirely invasive; it was one part of his body telling me what the whole of his body wanted to do; with some urgency. 

At first it was shocking; completely odd and out of the blue: then I gave myself over to it completely: I was in it now, I reasoned to myself. I wanted to do it beyond anything on earth, so if I was going to do it, I was going to do it body and soul. Although truly I was beyond reason; far, far beyond. 

And then, it was wonderful.

I kissed him back, tentatively at first, then with increasing boldness, then we were both, wrestling with each other, pressing up against each other, closer and closer. At one point, in abandon, I raised my arms above my head and let him pin them there, giving him closer access to me and my body, his knee between my legs. 

Wild-eyed, out of breath he broke off eventually.

"You kiss like a girl who hasn't been kissed in a long time"

I stared straight at him.

"I've never been kissed like that" I said. 

He blinked. 

"We... you don't...I mean, it's not very gentlemanly of me..."

The breath was ragged in my throat.

"I don't want you to be gentlemanly"

He smiled at that. Then he cupped my chin in his hand.

"Oh Ciss, you are so young."

"Too young" I said, as boldly as I was able, 'to spend the rest of my life without..."

Those eyebrows arched again.

"Where's your husband?"

I shrugged.

"He goes into the city, to Espanola... I don't know where he goes exactly. I don't ask."

He nodded.

"Is he home?'

I shook my head.

"I doubt it."

"Mm. Would you... would you like to come home with me for a little?"

I swallowed.

"What are we going to do?"

He turned to him, mostly in shadow in the dark of the playground. I could barely see his face. He could be anyone. A shiver of excitement ran through me. 

"Well, I thought I'd fuck you" he said. "You wanna do that?"

I nodded.

"Yes please."

*

His rooms were tidy, clean but devoid of personality. There was not a single picture, not even of his late wife, which I assumed he kept somewhere private. There was a blackboard, covered in scribble that meant nothing to me, and a large pile of papers, and that was all. There were three rooms and a deck, and an enthusiastic labrador called Bongo, who greeted his master delightedly.

He took the dog out, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, to leave a strange girl in his apartment. Perhaps it was, to him. I looked around me, and wondered what to do. I saw myself in the rainbow- rimmed mirror above the unused fireplace; I looked different. My green eyes glittered; my dark brown hair was a terrible mess from being pushed against the playground wall; my lips were parted and damp. I put my hand to my chest and unbuttoned the top loop of my dark green silk dress, the best I had for dinner parties. Then another. I couldn't believe I was being so brazen. I didn't dare turn on another light; made do with the small lamp he had lit as we entered. 

I tried another. My brassiere was of the old sort; it tied with ribbons, and didn't yet have the taut engineering that became fashionable after the war. Bobby had never shown the least interest in my breasts: they seemed to be large for my frame, which was slender, but to think so was worldly, and I had paid them little attention. 

The dog didn't come back in the house, I didn't realise anyone was there, till I heard a sharp intake of breath.

"Jeez" he said, his tall frame outlined in the doorway. "Jeez, look at you. Look at you. You glow." 

He crossed the floor in two paces. "God. Can I?''

I swallowed heavily. "I think" I said, my heart pounding painfully in my chest. "I think I should tell you I haven't really done this before."

He gave me that intense, quizzical, humorous look.

"What, ever?" he said. 

"Uhm, nine times" I said. I didn't understand why this made him burst out laughing. 

"Nine times" he said. "How long you been married?"

"Three years" I said, hanging my head. 

"So, what, birthday, birthday Christmas?"

He was teasing me, but it made me miserable. I lifted my head, and he could see the pain there. 

"Sssh" he said. 

"He doesn't want to" I said, close to tears. "And I don't know what's wrong with me."

Dick shook his head.

"There is nothing- nothing- wrong with you" he said. "You have no idea how lovely you are. No. Poor old Bobby, it's not his fault."

"I know" I said. 

"The world isn't very good at dealing with unimportant irregularities" he said and held out his hand. 

"Come here" he said, and I went to him. He smelled of graphite and limes and chalk and carbon paper and I felt tiny in his arms. He crushed me to him.

"Wanna get started?" 

 

***

The bedroom was plain too, overlooking a small raked back yard. There was a large double bed with a white sheet, endless books, but nothing else. He turned on a small lamp on the wall which gave out a weak light into the room. Books and construction paper jotters lined the walls and the shelving; were piled high to the ceiling. I felt unbelievably nervous, although Dick was holding my hand. No: because he was holding my hand. 

He smiled, slightly, and pulled me closer to him; dragged me straight up against him. After spending my life with a man who was diffident towards me at best, here, now, was absolute and solid proof of how much somebody wanted me: I felt his cock- although I didn't think of calling it that, not at all, not at the time, goodness, no: I was suddenly slightly horrified that a few hours ago I had gone to a dinner party, and now I was in a strange man's bedroom, feeling something extremely thick and hard through his trousers. This was not me. 

He was not aggressive, but he was firm: put his hand under my chin and lifted it to him, so he could kiss me again. Then he sat me down on the bed and smiled.

"What?"

"Nothing" he said. "It's just very nice to look at you."

My lips felt puffy and tender, and I touched them experimentally. 

"Take down another button" he said, his voice hoarse. I looked straight at him and did so, and he rubbed his own hand across his mouth. It was warm in the little room, although when darkness fell the desert became cold. 

Suddenly, with a flourish, I whipped the circle of green silk up and over my head, pulling the dress off. The silk fell on the bed like a pool of water and his eyes followed it, wonderingly. Then back to me, and he shook his head in astonishment. 

"Cissie Masterson" he said, shaking his head. "You are like a flower unfurling."

He moved forward.

"Everything in nature is beautiful to me" he said, as he lightly touched the ribbons - two strands of pistachio- coloured satin which held the cups of my brassiere together in the middle. "But you, particularly so"

He held the ribbons then lent forward slowly, and, still fully clothed himself, forcefully drew out one of my nipples, and took it in his mouth. 

He did not see my 'oh' of surprise; it was the most forward thing that had ever happened to me. So far. 

He held and caressed it there, then lifted up his left hand to withdraw the other over the top of the my bra, although he left the bra on. He pulled it forward, caressing the nipple hard between his forefinger and thumb. I gasped. I had absolutely not known they could feel like this. The nipple was swelling, growing harder and longer in his mouth, as he sucked and pinched to a level almost painful: almost.

The lights of a lone car scraped the bedroom ceiling, and suddenly I had absolutely no idea what was happening to my body. I was hot and cold; shivering violently, trying to cram more and more of my breast into his mouth. My breath was coming in harsh gasps, and sweat was popping out on my forehead. He noticed.

"Like this, huh?"

I could only nod, still trembling and he smiled and went back to his work, patiently, as if we had all the time in the world; as if he was completely oblivious to the tumult he'd awakened within me. 

Gently caressing my face, and keeping his mouth and tongue occupied with my breasts, he started to move his left hand down the smooth flanks of my body. It caressed me everywhere; the curve of my hips; the flat of my stomach; grazing the top of my garter belt. He felt down my side: we were still sitting at this point, face to face, and he nudged me backwards on to the bed. 

"I'll take my shoes off" I muttered, worried about his sheets. They were black high heels with a peep toe and a little ribbon on the front; I rarely had a chance to wear them. He shook his head vehemently. "Keep them on" he said sternly. 

His mouth moved up to my neck and he pressed closer. I wasn't sure what I should be doing, and said so. He broke off and smiled.

"Don't do a thing' he said. "Don't worry"

I looked at him. He was strong, powerful and handsome in the dim light; the most beautiful; the best thing I ever saw.

"How do you know what to do?" I asked, nervously. 

"I just like being good at stuff" he said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. 

Then he focused on me again, gently laid me down on the bed as my heart started to pound dangerously loudly. "And hey; you are just so very very lovely, and I do not think you have been treated well." 

*

He took a long look at me lying there, as if trying to imprint it on his memory. He had moved my knees apart so my legs had fallen open, quite naturally, and to my astonishment I left them there. My breasts protruded far over the top of the brassiere, the nipples rock hard; they felt incredibly tight. I felt flushed and red, and still could not control my breathing. 

"Sheesh" he said, shaking his head. He took his trousers off, quickly. Now I could see it; huge, purple topped, it was straining through the gap in his boxers. I much have gasped when I saw it- it was far larger than, as far as I could tell, Bobby's, although I had never really seen my husband's penis; we were always in the dark. I looked at it curiously, and he grinned.

"Seriously?" he said. "You wanna see it?"

I nodded. I was hungry for everything tonight. He drew it out slowly, until now he was lying naked and I was still half-dressed. I saw the heavy pulsing vein on the underside; the huge bulging end of it. It didn't look like anything that would fit in me. 

"Can I touch it?" I asked and he rolled over, groaning and smiling at the same time.

"You know what?" he said. "Not yet." 

He propped himself beside me on his right elbow, and started, once more with his left hand tracing up and down my body, around now my bottom and the tops of my garters; now the inside of my thighs, gently, mercilessly up and down, closer and closer to the centre of me which now felt like it was on fire. As if completely separate to me, not controlled, I feel my pelvis twitch, move of its own accord towards him. I am pushing myself towards his fingers. Someone makes a loud gasping noise. I realise it is me. 

His fingers carry on their slow tormenting stroking, up and down the inside of my thigh, and I am completely alive and desperate with need, everything in the universe centering on the place at the heart of me that he has not yet even touched. 

I wonder now, I do. Was it easier then, before constant sex on television and that internet box; before sex was everywhere, being sold, repackaged, to teenagers as dance moves, to girls as clothes; before it seemed the whole world seemed to be pulsating with angry, joyless, airbrushed sex- puppets in the very air we breathe; was it easier then to overcome a woman so intensely, to be so incredibly exciting, simply because we were all so damn ignorant?

Truly, I am not sure. I think, unless you were very lucky, there must have been many more unsatisfied women then, because we did not- could not- know what to ask for, nor how. We were imprinted with shame.

But I also think there is no era in which he would not have been something very special: a man who liked women, who wanted to please them and had taken the time to work out precisely how to do so. He was a scientist to his very bones. 

*

I tried to grab his hand, to force it to where it suddenly and urgently needed to be, and he smiled at me again, his eyes black and unreadable in the dim light. 

"You are greedy" he said, but I could barely hear him, was no longer focused at all; something was happening to me; something new and entirely different and with every fiber of my being I could only follow it through to the end; needed to force it now to happen. He lifted his hand from my body, and I let out a huge sigh of frustration and anger, and he hushed me.

"Patience" he said. Then he looked at me once more, and then his thick long fingers touched me there. 

My hips jerked as if I had been given an electric shock, bounced right up off the bed, as I cried out. My entire body was covered in sweat now, and down there was suddenly thick and heavy and damp, swollen and pulsating. He really did very little; ran the back of his fingers across the budded front, rubbed it gently with his thumb and his forefinger. but that was enough, and now I really couldn't breathe; was simply compelled to move.

"Please" I said, although I had no idea what I was begging for, not really, it was just random words coming out of my mouth. "Please."

He did it again, and I let out a completely inchoate cry, as everything started to rush, like the blood through my veins, and my vision got blurry and my hips started to pump. 

"Well" he said. "This appears to be happening more quickly than I anticipated. Experimentation trumps theory, again. "

Quickly, he mounted me; rolled on top, covering me and I felt his heavy weight. Now our two bodies, slick with sweat, were pressed up against each other,and I could feel his heart beating just as heavily as mine was; his chest heaving just the same. I was still pushing my crotch towards him, desperately rubbing it on anything I could reach: and then he stopped me completely, in my tracks, simply by inserting a long, thick finger inside me. I froze.

To feel him inside my body: it was a stark and massive intrusion, his alien finger in itself filling my aching passage, and I twisted and contorted on it, even though it hurt me.

"Christ, you're tight" he said, breathlessly. "You're ridiculously tight. What the hell have you two kids been doing, playing poker?"

I couldn't answer; couldn't stop my hips now, they were writhing, beating to their own drum. 

"Ssh" he said, kissing my neck, which was meant to calm me but only inflamed me further. "Ssh. Darling. My darling.'

His fingers- he had introduced another, stretching me further apart- were working, slowly, but steadily, and my face tensed as I accommodated them, and my hips slammed now, again, and again, on the counterpane. 

He looked at me as I thrashed, on the very outskirts of control.

"Sweetheart" he said, and he didn't sugarcoat it, and he didn't pretend it would be better than it was: he simply told me. "This is going to hurt."

"I don't care."

"Tell me to stop if it's too much"

"Just..." in my fever, I didn't know what I was asking. "I want it. I want it."

I kept repeating the words, and he opened my legs again, pulling them apart, further than I knew they could stretch, then he looked briefly at my satin knickers- french knickers, then, with the garter belt over the top,and the stockings, of course, and still those ridiculous impractical shoes: then he simply tore down the seams of the knickers; one side and then the other, leaving me totally exposed to the cool desert night air, ripe and overwrought, the fine delicate hair utterly damp; fragrant and he kissed me there- there! something I had neither heard of nor contemplated; then he supported himself on one arm, and, deliberately, but not gently, not particularly, he teased my lips apart, rubbing me with his thumb as he did so, and forced the wide swollen tip of his huge cock inside.

That was it; that was all it took. My body jumped off a cliff: I screamed, I think, or made some noise at any rate, as he pushed himself in: and there was pain; my confusion was overwhelming. I had simply no idea what was happening to me; to my body; I felt like I was being ripped into a million pieces, and as the waves consumed me, tossed me up and down, again and again, he continued: drove up, more and more firmly inside me, but the extraordinary pain of this somehow mingled with the pleasure; prolonged it even as it spirited it away, so I came- as I realised it was,later, realised what was actually happening to me- but then, my mouth was a complete "oh", Dick said later, of total and utter surprise; as I came: unbelievably hard, for the first time ever, right on to that rock solid cock, again and again; the pain pushing me away and the pleasure bringing me back in like a riptide, and, seeing this happening, Dick had no reason to hold back, as he saw it, or to prolong matters- he was no show-off- and he thrust, heartily then, with all his might, joyously, again and again and again, grunting heavily and I could not seem to stop making these ridiculous noises too until with a great roar, he thrust so far up me I wanted to die, then his back arched, and something pulsed and pulsed inside me and I felt a great warm flood, and then I felt something warm too trickle down my face and I realised it was sweat, mine and his, intermingled, as well as something else I think might have been a tear; mine, I suspect.

And anyhow, that is what is what it was like at Los Alamos. Are you hungry, my dear? You look hungry. Young people are always hungry, in my experience. Shall we have lunch?"


End file.
